Obama's Motives? And Three Cheers for the ACLU!

After giving the matter some additional thought, I'm still not convinced that Obama is a hero for releasing these documents.

The release of the Torture Memos was not an entirely voluntary act on the part of the Obama administration. The decision was prompted by a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by the ACLU. The Court imposed a deadline for the Obama administration to respond to the ACLU's request for the documents. Had the Obama Administration refused to make the documents public, the lawsuit would have been litigated and the government would had had to defend its refusal to turn over the documents in open court.

I suspect that the prospect of having to defend a refusal to release the documents in open court weighed heavily on Obama's decision to release them voluntarily. These were, after all, legal memoranda stating the executive branch's interpretation of US law - and an interpretation that was no longer in force to boot. The memos contained no intelligence data or sensitive information. What possible defense could the Obama administration have offered the court to justify its decision to keep that information secret?

It is also worth emphasising that it was the ACLU that did the heavy lifting for the nation. Its not clear that those memos ever would have seen the light of day had the ACLU not challenged the government on our behalf. We should all be grateful. I'm going to make a donation immediately.

Joe H.